


this never-ending dance

by SharkbaitHaHa



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, First Kiss, Love Confessions, M/M, Road Trips, S12 AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:27:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27691370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SharkbaitHaHa/pseuds/SharkbaitHaHa
Summary: Domestic life in the bunker with Mary back in the picture was what Dean thought he wanted. Until it wasn't. Life on the road isn't that satisfying, either.Castiel only had one goal: kill the Devil once and for all. When that's done, where is there left to go?A story of finding the definition of home.
Relationships: Castiel & Dean Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 1
Kudos: 56





	1. The Start

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to everyone that has complicated relationships with family, especially their mothers. I hope you all find your homes.

He hates himself for feeling this way. He really does. But he can’t help it.

He can’t help the way that he feels walking into the kitchen to cook breakfast, only to find a plate of pancakes on the table, two already in Sam’s stomach. Or when he goes to vacuum just to find there’s nothing to vacuum, or when he goes to wash Baby to find her spit-shined twice.

It makes him feel useless. It makes him feel...coddled. He doesn’t like  _ not _ having chores to do, as weird as that sounds aloud. He’s just too used to being an adult to be the child again. Besides, a 37-year-old man shouldn’t be treated like one anyway.

It’s not that he isn’t happy that Mary is here. He is. He’s overfuckingjoyed. He never thought he’d ever get this in a million years. He’s not taking a moment of this for granted, because he keeps feeling that any second it can be pulled out from right underneath him. Most good things do.

“Dean, I was thinking pecan pie for dessert, what do you think?” Mary asks him as he walks into the library.

“Actually...I’m trying to cut back on sugar. You know, less hunts, less burned calories, that whole thing.”

Yeah, he’s beginning to hate pecan pie too.

By the time Cas gets back from hunting Lucifer,  _ if _ Cas gets back, he’s going to have died of coddling. If that’s possible.

Damn, having a parent around was harder than he thought.

He snaps when he goes to do his laundry to find it washed, folded, and returned to his dresser. Suddenly the bunker is too small, his life too constricting.

He has to do something about it. He has to do something about it  _ now _ before he decides to start pouring the bottles of whiskey.

“Sam,” he says, finding him in his room watching Netflix. “Can we talk?”

“Sure,” his brother says immediately. He can hear the tone of Dean’s voice, can tell something isn’t right. “What’s going on?”

Dean says nothing, just leads him down the hallway. He doesn’t stop until he finds a little room in a hidden corner that you only find if you’re looking for it.

“Seriously, Dean. You okay?” Sam asks impatiently as Dean closes the door behind them.

Dean hesitates. Thinking. Choosing. “It’s about Mom.”

“Mom?” Sam echoes. “What about her? Did something happen? Is something wrong?”

“No,” Dean replies, too quickly. “Yes. No. I don’t know.” He rubs his face and lets out a frustrated sigh.

“Dean,” Sam starts gently. “I don’t understand.”

“How do you do it?” he suddenly says.

“Do what?”

“This! This-this  _ charade _ .”

The comprehension begins to dawn on Sam, and he gives Dean an almost pitying look. “Oh. I see. You can’t adjust to Mom being around, can you?”

“How can  _ you _ ?”

The words sting slightly, but Sam knows Dean doesn’t mean to be hurtful here. Really, he’s the one hurting. “I dunno,” he answers honestly. “I just...do. I mean, I always wanted normal. So this is probably as close to normal as I’m ever going to get. I’m not going to lie, I love it.”

“Well, I don’t!” Dean explodes. “Did you know she made my eggs and bacon to look like a fucking smiley face this morning? And when was the last time I even had to  _ cook _ for myself? Or do  _ laundry _ ? Fuck, I can’t even wash my own goddamn car before she does.”

Sam watches his brother break down, unloading a weight that he’s been carrying on himself since probably the moment Amara gave them their mother back. It takes him a moment to respond, if only because he can’t think of what he can do or say to make it better.

Finally, he decides to go with, “Do you want me to ask her to tone it down?”

“No,” Dean says dismissively. “That’ll just offend her.”

“Then what is it you  _ want _ ?”

“Listen,” he begins, and now Sam starts to realize that Dean knows exactly what he wants and how to get it. This whole thing wasn’t Dean asking for help, it was Dean telling him what his plans are. “I understand why Mom has been acting this way. Fully get it. She’s been dead 33 years, misses out on raising us, and decides to make up for 33 years wasted. I respect her for that. But I can’t live like that. And I can’t live with myself if I tell her she needs to stop.”

“So...what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to leave.”

Sam stares at him. Takes a confused breath. “What?”   
  


“I can’t take living like this anymore, Sam. I can’t live... _ domestic _ . Since when were we last truly on the road, huh? Since when were we driving somewhere not knowing when we’d be home again, or where home was?” Dean points out.

“I...I honestly don’t know,” Sam admits. 

Dean nods in resolve. “Right. Too long. I run on gasoline, Sammy. I always have. Staying here in one place, acting the apple pie, I thought that was what I truly wanted. But now that I have it...I see that my place is out on the road. Not here.”

“You mean, not here with Mom,” Sam corrects softly. “You never had a problem until Mom got here.”

Dean just looks at him. It’s enough.

“So you’re going to go, huh?” Sam breathes, partly in disbelief, partly in acceptance. It was inevitable, even though it was also unexpected. “What are you going to do? Pick up jobs?”

“Yeah, for now. Keep it to routine stuff. Ghosts, vampires, werewolves, the occasional ghoul. Nothing too crazy. Back to the basics.”

“And then?”

“And then we’ll talk again.”

Sam shakes his head and looks down at the concrete floor. “I don’t like this. Not one bit.”

“I let you go to Stanford, Sammy,” Dean says in a quiet voice, looking down at the floor too. “When you couldn’t take Dad anymore. This is the same thing.”

Sam wants to go off at him at that moment, yell and scream about how this is  _ nothing _ like that, how Mary is the best thing that has walked into their lives since  _ forever, _ and how  _ dare _ Dean equate the worst years of Sam’s life with some of their current best moments. But he thinks about the words Dean has said so far, and what he must be feeling, and in a way, he gets where he’s coming from. This is the complete opposite of what Dean has ever known in life, and he’s never really wanted this, not like the way Sam has. Maybe if Sam was in Dean’s shoes he’d be miserable enough to want to run away too.

“I’ll tell her a half-truth,” Sam tells him instead, voice steady and calm. “That you needed to get out of the bunker and breathe. I won’t mention that you’re dissatisfied with her.”

“Thank you.”

They embrace at that moment, tightly. This is the first time they’ve willingly separated in a long time, and neither one is fully prepared or ready for that. They don’t know when they’ll see each other again, and while it scares the shit out of them, for the first time in a long time…

They’re okay with that.

“Maybe now it’s finally time for us to learn to live on our own again,” Dean says over barely hidden tears. 

Sam isn’t afraid to let his tears show. “Maybe. I’ll miss you like hell, though.”

“You can call me anytime,” Dean promises. “Day or night. 2 a.m. or 2 p.m.. Although I might be a bit grumpy if it's 2 a.m..”

Sam laughs around his tears. He’s going to miss this. “Take care of yourself, okay? Don’t take on more than you can handle. I’ll be more than happy to send someone to help you, or drive out myself if I have to.”

“Got it, Bobby,” Dean smiles dryly. “Take care of Mom, too, alright? She still has a lot to adjust to. I saw her reacting to an article on politics the other day. It wasn’t pretty.”

“I imagine not,” Sam grinned. “She’ll be fine.”

“Okay.” Dean nods, hand on the doorknob. “This is it. My bag is already packed and in the Impala. I was going to leave after telling you.”

“Well thanks for telling me at least,” Sam jokes, but there’s a weight heard underneath it. 

“Don’t mention it.” And without saying goodbye, because Winchesters aren’t in the business of saying goodbyes, Dean walks out the door and down the hall to the garage. Sam doesn’t bother to follow and instead listens to the muted sound of the engine start and fade.

“Where’d Dean go?” Mary asks Sam later, while he’s distracting himself with books of fairy lore.

Sam closes his book and looks up at her. “Out. Don’t expect him back anytime soon.”

Mary just gives him a funny look, nods her head, and walks away.


	2. The Middle

Dean stays in the Great Plains for the first two months. There’s a few hauntings in the area, one vampire, and two werewolves. Easy work. He calls Sam every night to tell him where he is, what he’s doing, and that he’s still alive. Sam gives him reports on life at the Bunker. The pipe in the bathroom broke, had to be fixed. Jody called asking for advice on an issue, but it turned out to be nothing. Mary asked again when Dean would be home, and again Sam lied.

Sam tells Dean every phone call he wishes he had an estimated return date. And every time Dean tells him, “The moment I have one you’ll be the first to know.”

They always skirt the elephant in the room, the third member of Team Free Will who has been off on his own adventure for several months now. Neither knows how he’s doing, where he is, or if he is even still alive. They both are terrified to ask. Instead, Dean continues hunting, Sam continues living, and they both decide to act like Cas doesn’t exist until he does.

Dean isn’t sure how he feels about this. On one hand, out of sight, out of mind. On the other...he just wants to see Cas again.

In every town he visits, he looks for him. A few times he thinks he’s come close. A man walking to work in a similar trench coat, or wearing a tie that’s _just_ the wrong shade of blue. A Lincoln Continental, but it’s the wrong year or a car that’s the right color but wrong make. The double-takes are always disappointing, but he checks anyway. Just in case.

It’s a lonely life like that, but Dean enjoys it. He likes the sun on his face, the wind in his hair as he speeds down Nebraskan interstates or past Kansas cornfields. He plays all his cassettes as loud as they go and sings along at the top of his lungs. He binge eats on greasy burgers and sleeps on lumpy motel mattresses that leave cricks in his neck in the mornings.

He’s never felt so alive.

But, eventually, as all things do, it begins to wear thin. Each hunt starts to feel the same, and driving through endless corn from identical small town to small town starts to get old. It starts to get more difficult to stay in character undercover anymore, just because he doesn’t have the energy to keep the act up.

He tells Sam this over the phone one night. “So, does this mean you’re coming home?” he asks, a hint of hope betrayed in his voice.

Dean thinks about it. Genuinely does. The idea of driving the six or seven hours back to Lebanon. Back to the bunker. Back to Mom.

It still doesn’t feel right. “I’m sorry, Sammy. It doesn’t mean I’m coming home,” he sighs. “It just means I’m not going to be hunting for a while.”

“What are you going to do then?”  
  


Dean picks at lint on the threadbare quilt of his motel bed. “I’ll figure something out.”

“Tell me when you do, okay?”

“Okay. Tell Mom I said hi.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to talk to her?” Sam has begun asking this of him. Maybe his way of trying to ease Dean into getting used to Mom being around.

“I’m sure,” Dean always says instead. “Talk to you soon.” And then he hangs up.

After he hangs up, he does some digging in his duffel. He retrieves an old crumpled map that has been sitting in the darkest recesses since probably the early 00s and tapes it on the wall. Then he flips open his smallest pocket knife, takes aim, and flings it.

It lands smack dab in the middle of Tennessee. Tennessee it is. He hasn’t been to Nashville in a long time, anyway. And never before to the Smokies.

This would be different.

He gets to Nashville first. Goes to the Grand Ole Opry, picks up some Johnny Cash cassettes at a cheap record store and a woman named Carrie who looks close enough to the country star to make her worthwhile. It leaves him unsatisfied and upset with himself and that’s when he moves on to Memphis to tour Graceland for the fifth time and then to the Smokies, where he drinks overpriced Moonshine, buys a birthday gift for Sam at an outlet mall, a necklace for his mom, and a jacket that looks identical to Cas’ old one before it got ruined and replaced with that cheap, odd fitting one that was never quite the same. He mails all three to their P.O. box back in Lebanon, and Sam calls him a few days later to thank him for the package and to say that when Mary received the necklace she cried. Dean drinks himself senseless that night, then goes for a hike in the mountains the next day to clear his mind.

He also rides the go-karts just for the hell of it. That’s fun, even if some people give him odd looks for going alone.

But then Tennessee gets boring too, the country music gets annoying, and if he has to deal with another tourist family in town for the weekend he’ll lose his mind. So he unfolds the map again, throws his pocket knife, and heads for Oregon.

And so it goes.

* * *

Castiel returns to Lebanon almost exactly a year after Dean left it. He’s exhausted, beyond so, yet satisfied. After months and months of searching, after near-death experiences and wild goose chases and deals made and deals went wrong, he finally was able to find and destroy Lucifer once and for all. Now there was nothing,  _ nothing _ , standing between him and home.

And he didn’t consider Heaven home anymore.

As he drives back to the bunker, the late summer light streaming through the open windows, he hums the Led Zeppelin song playing on the radio.

Today would be a good day. A great day. Today he would be home. Today he would reunite with Sam and Mary and most importantly, with Dean.

When he walks through the doors of the bunker, Sam sees him from below and meets him on the stairwell halfway to engulf him in a big hug.

“It’s done, Sam, it’s done,” Cas tells him, and the weight of what he did hits the both of them and they sink to the stairs and hold each other and cry.

Mary finds them like this when she returns from getting groceries. She sets the paper bags down, even though the milk will spoil if it doesn’t go in the fridge soon, and sits behind them, resting their heads on her lap as she whispers soothing words and promises she now can keep. They stay like this for a long time, until Cas and Sam have no more tears left to cry and Mary’s hands are getting tired from continually petting their hair.

Then Cas pulls back and says the question that he should’ve asked the moment he walked in the door. “Where’s Dean?”

Sam and Mary look at each other at that moment, ashamed, and Mary clears her throat and says something about the groceries and gets up to put them away. Sam gets left behind to break the news to Cas and tells him everything.

Cas listens in silence as Sam explains. He asks only one question, in the end, after Sam is done explaining the whats and whys.

“Where is he now?”

Sam gives him the name, some small town in Wyoming. Cas puts the coordinates in his iPhone (technology, Cas has learned, can be very helpful from time to time), tells Sam and Mary goodbye, and leaves the bunker just as quickly as he arrived. Before he pulls out of the drive, Sam comes running out of the bunker. Cas thinks Sam is trying to stop him, or tag along.

Instead, Sam hands him a parcel through the window. “From Dean.” Cas doesn’t open it until he stops for gas two hours later.

The ill-fitting coat is thrown away.

Back at the bunker, Sam is tempted to call Dean and give him a heads up but decides against it. He’s sure Cas would like to surprise him. Instead, he and Mary go out to dinner to celebrate the death of the worst being ever created by God Himself. He feels lighter now and feels like maybe things might not be so bad anymore.

Cas, on the other hand, still carries a weight. He’s confused, because he thought it would go away once Lucifer died, but if anything it got more noticeable. Perhaps the weight of Lucifer’s presence was hiding this one. A pain to distract the pain. As he drives west, chasing the sun, he no longer hums the radio. Instead, he stares resolutely ahead, occasionally glancing at his GPS, and wishes that once more he could fly.

Cas doesn’t make it to the small town that day, but he does make it to Cheyenne. He doesn’t know much about Cheyenne, just that there’s a country song about it that Dean once argued was a true story and was a hunt worth checking out. Sam’s voice of reason won and they didn’t.

He stays in the outskirts, at a motel that’s part-saloon, and sits alone at a bar along with some truck drivers and cowboys. He thinks Dean would feel comfortable in a place like here, and would probably be chatting up the bartender with the sizeable breasts.

He’s tempted to call Dean, to tell him he’s coming, but changes his mind. Maybe Dean would like the surprise. And maybe if he did call Dean would say not to come.

Cas would rather drive all the way out to wherever Dean was just so he could be told that face to face. Then at least he’d have that moment with Dean in-person.

The next day, he leaves at dawn. The only reason he doesn’t drive through the night is to power nap. While he got his Grace back, not all of it is there anymore, and it leaves him vulnerable to exhaustion and hunger after extended periods. He hasn’t slept in the past two weeks, hasn’t eaten in three. Those things caught up with him, now that Lucifer isn’t his target.

He gets to the town at around ten in the morning. It’s a ranching town, not much else to it, and also has been awake since dawn. He sees signs advertising for a rodeo and heads that way. Dean always liked violent sports.

Cas barely has to walk through the maze of bullpens and horse stalls to realize Dean isn’t there, but a conversation with the funnel cake booth reveals that yesterday evening someone matching Dean’s description bought three funnel cakes from them in a row. Probably to split with whatever cute rancher’s daughter he met.

Some more searching leads Cas to the rancher’s  _ son  _ in question. He’s a handsome young man, with dark hair and light eyes that bring youth to his weathered skin. He is reluctant to discuss Dean with Cas until Cas explains patiently to him that Dean isn’t in trouble, he’s just a friend that he’d like to find. For old times’ sake.

“He was heading west. To Nevada. Said he was going to try to find Area 51, the weirdo,” the rancher’s son had laughed. “Kept kidding that maybe he’d be able to get his hands on the Ark of the Covenant or find the Roswell Alien.”

Cas doesn’t understand this, because the Roswell Alien was a fallen angel that Heaven retrieved decades ago and the Ark was still safely hidden in Australia (don’t ask). But he does do some research and discovers that there  _ is _ a town in Nevada that boasts “Area 51 HQ! Come and see what our government is hiding from us!” A good place as any to start.

In this town, Cas meets a guy who smells like the desert and wears a shirt with the Illuminati symbol on it. The guy tells him that Dean was most definitely in town but left to go, “Off chasing the lights, man. I told him to find himself he had to find the lights of his life.”

This doesn’t sound like Dean at all, but then again, Dean never was one to split funnel cakes with rancher’s sons either. “And did you tell him where he would find it?”

The hippie scratches his unkempt beard. “Nah man, you gotta find that on your own. Nobody but  _ you _ can find your light.”

Cas really doesn’t have the patience for this. “Do you at least have an  _ idea _ of where he could have gone?”

“Oh yeah. Arizona. He said he was going to Arizona.”

Jesus Christ, he could’ve told Cas that ten minutes ago. Cas gives him a stiff thanks and begins to head back to his car.

And that’s when it hits him.

He knows where Dean is.


	3. The End

Dean once taught Cas the phrase, “All roads lead to home.” Dean had taught it to him in a semi-kidding way, making some half-assed joke about how the statement wasn’t true for him because there was never a home to go to. This was after they found the Bunker, so that joke confused Cas. He had a home to go to.

Now Cas understands. Dean never thought he did, and still doesn’t.

The sun is rising over the Arizona desert and Cas takes the exit. A weathered sign promises a lookout point. He can only hope his gut is right.

Like it hasn’t led him astray before.

The weathered road gets narrower and slowly turns from cracked pavement to desert rock. Cliff walls rise on either side of him and he feels the beginnings of panic.  _ Though I walk through the valley of death, I shall fear no evil _ …

He doesn’t know why he thinks of that particular verse. His life isn’t on the line.

Although his car might be. Eventually, the road gets so narrow that he fears that he will get caught between the cliffsides. When it gets to the point that he nearly has to turn back, it suddenly widens into a clearing.

And that’s when he sees the prettiest black car he’s ever encountered in his short time on Earth.

For once, his gut is right.

He parks next to the Impala and stares at it for a good while, just breathing. Then, after a quick summoning of courage (he wasn’t this scared when he went to kill Lucifer, not nearly), he gets out of the Lincoln. He eyes the WARNING: RATTLESNAKES AND SCORPIONS warily and begins to hike up a rocky path.

The hike isn’t long in terms of distance but it is steep and difficult and takes a while to climb. Ten minutes and a dusty suit later and he’s reached the top. The wind blows hard up here, chasing away his breath as he notices that he isn’t alone.

Cas barely hears what Dean says as he walks over, getting up from where he was sitting on a weathered picnic table. “Wonderin’ when you’d get here…”

“You...wanted me here?”

Dean smiles at Cas in the way that means he means it. It’s a smile that causes crow’s feet to form at the corners of his eyes and a spark to light. “Who else would I want to share this with?” Then he turns and walks over to the sorry excuse of a wooden guardrail and looks out.

Cas stares at him for a second, thinking, before joining him. Together, they take in the magnificence that is the Grand Canyon. “Better than the postcards,” Dean breathes. “Dontcha think?”

Cas thinks so. He says so. 

They continue to stare at the vast expanse for several moments, until finally, Dean says, “I’ve always wanted to come here. But something always got in the way. An Apocalypse, Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, angels, demons, Lucifer, God Himself, and his sister. You name it.”

“But now you’re here,” Cas points out.

Dean nods. “And now I’m here. And now there’s nothing between this either.”

And that’s when Dean turns to face Cas, leans in, and kisses him.

It’s soft, barely a taste of desert-chapped lips on his. “Welcome home,” Dean says quietly, smiling softly. And then, with more courage, he kisses Cas again.

Cas returns the kiss eagerly. This. He’s been waiting so long for this. So long for Dean to finally let him come home. So long to be loved. He almost wants to cry. He thinks Dean might be.

The wind continues to whistle around them, the sun beats harshly on the backs of their exposed necks, and the heat makes them want to melt.

But all they feel is the comfort of a long-awaited kiss, like returning home after a long drive.

Turns out the phrase was right.

**Author's Note:**

> Title stolen from "July" by BOY. Give it a listen.


End file.
